Friday 15 July 2016

Reviews: July 2016

To Build a Fire
Jack London
August 1908



This is an epic tragedy of humans vs. nature. And so it begins. The man is walking with his dog in the Yukon, Canada. It is below minus fifty degrees and the dog knows it. The man knows his timeframe and knows what his route is. He is careless in thinking he can do the journey alone. Almost believable too, you're thinking ah! this is great! A real adventure of a man and his dog. Until that is, he wants to kill the dog to use as gloves. He gets soaking wet and makes a fire, only for it to go out. He loses all the feeling in his extremities, and the bacon sandwich he has snuggled next to his skin under his clothes, all warm and soaked in salty bacon fat goes to waste. A sudden urgency and he makes a run for it - surprised but delusional that his legs can even carry him, again and again, these mad dashes followed by exhaustion. You're nervous but convinced, he might make it! He dreams of his boys finding him in the morning, a lovely sleep envelops him. His body lying in the snow. The dog waits, but the man smells of death. The dog no longer needs to be out in the cold, he makes his own dash for home. It is superbly powerful. The landscape sparse, the story simple. But powerful, oh yes. Read it now.